Transformers

Transformers: Dark of the Moon was a major box office success over the holiday weekend. The movie, of course, involves an alien invasion of Earth, which has been a favorite science fiction theme of Hollywood for decades. Advances in special effects technology also encourage such stories, allowing spectacular scenes to be credibly depicted.


The transformers of the title are, of course, intelligent machines. Many scientists speculate that our first contact with extraterrestrials will, in fact, be with intelligent machines. Machines, they argue, are better able to deal with the rigors of spaceflight than biological life forms are. Further, machine intelligence, once created, will quickly blow by biological brains. Once artificial intelligence starts designing computers, the pace of progress will quicken.

Will spacefaring intelligent machines be aggressive, acquisitive, political? For a while yet, at least in Hollywood, they probably will be.